BGSU ALLIES: Building Inclusive Leadership Practices and Policies to Transform the Institution

Bowling Green State University, Bowling Green OH

Investigators

Abstract

The NSF ADVANCE program is designed to foster gender equity through a focus on the identification and elimination of organizational barriers that impede the full participation and advancement of diverse faculty in academic institutions. Organizational barriers that inhibit equity may exist in policies, processes, practices, and the organizational culture and climate. ADVANCE "Adaptation" awards provide support for the adaptation and adoption of evidence-based strategies to academic and non-academic non-profit organizations. The Bowling Green State University (BGSU) Adaptation project will implement activities to improve the representation and advancement of women STEM faculty at BGSU. BGSU will develop the ALLIES project which adapts evidence-based strategies from two ADVANCE-IT projects to build faculty allies within departments and inclusive leaders across the university: North Dakota State University's "Advocates & Allies" program and Florida International University's "Deep Change" program. The ALLIES project will focus on how administrators and faculty allies can work collaboratively to reduce biases and transform institutional policies and practices. Department allies ensure equitable review of job candidates and evaluation of faculty, serve as mentors to support colleagues' careers, and intervene when bias emerges. Inclusive leaders advocate for faculty and ensure policies and practices produce an equitable workplace. The long-term goal of the project is to make allyship and inclusive leadership the expectation and norm at BGSU. Inclusion, intersectionality, and interconnections--the 3 I's--serve as the unifying theme of all BGSU ALLIES programming. The BGSU ALLIES model is innovative because it integrates the concepts of allyship--rooted in the activities of faculty colleagues within departmental cultures--and inclusive leadership--the domain of department chairs, deans and other senior administrators--into a single unified program of institutional transformation. This approach is directed both top-down and bottom-up, as neither is likely to be effective alone. The BGSU ALLIES project has four objectives: 1) revise institutional policies and processes to make allyship and inclusive leadership the expectation for faculty and administrators, 2) design training materials, workshops, and online modules to train and develop departmental allies and inclusive leaders, 3) deploy new data collection processes for better tracking of faculty careers, and 4) disseminate training materials and best practices to other institutions through a strategic communication plan and a regional conference at BGSU. Most research on ally building in higher education settings focus on students therefore this project will contribute important new information about faculty and administrator allies to that literature. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.